United we stand, but divided we apologise

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Still confused about how to feel about the national apology to
the stolen generations? You are not a moral lightweight if you feel
a degree of confusion. In fact, you are experiencing what has been
shown to be a common attribute of Australian attitudes on questions
of indigenous policy.

According to research published last year by two political
scientists, Murray Goot and Tim Rowse, internal conflict over
indigenous issues is commonplace among Australians. In their book
Divided Nation? Indigenous Affairs And The Imagined Public,
Goot and Rowse demonstrate that "collective philosophical
ambivalence" has been a constant feature of Australian attitudes on
questions of indigenous policy, ever since polling was first done
on such issues, in 1941.

Closely examining four emblematic episodes in Australian
history, including the 1967 referendum in which more than 90 per
cent of Australians voted to delete parts of the Constitution that
discriminated against indigenous Australians, the authors
demonstrate that deep cracks existed beneath the apparent consensus
of support for indigenous equality. The 90 per cent vote was not
matched by support for social integration between indigenous and
non-indigenous Australians.

On other key questions such as native title, land rights and
reconciliation, polling data repeatedly indicated not just a divide
between sections of the community, but an internal division within
individual Australians on indigenous matters. In short, we have a
history of adopting complex and often conflicting views on
questions of indigenous equality, responsibility and
difference.

Given our historical pattern of confusion over such questions,
there is little reason to think this trend of internal division was
not permeating attitudes to last Wednesday's apology. A flood of
calls to talk-back radio across the country following the apology
indicated a continuing degree of ambivalence, even defiance, about
whether or not to feel guilt over past mistreatment of indigenous
people.

If the apology was truly to represent a new beginning, to serve
as the foundation for the successful acceleration of the
reconciliation movement, it was incumbent on the leaders of the two
main parties to help the public navigate what we can safely assume
to be some very conflicted and confused views. Unfortunately, both
the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition failed in this
task. Kevin Rudd's speech was one of principle. It was primarily a
speech to and for the victims of the stolen generations and the
wider indigenous community. The message was one of rectification.
To end the national silence and distortion of indigenous history,
through an unqualified apology and the airing of uncomfortable
truths.

For the purpose of righting wrongs to indigenous people and
arguably for rectifying what Rudd saw as a damaging decade of
ideological battle over the "truth" of these issues, the speech was
highly appropriate. For speaking to the broader, possibly
conflicted Australian community, this was not the speech.

Given the complexity of policy motives operating and the very
crude awareness of Aboriginal history of many Australians, an
appeal to the awfulness of certain actual removals and an
unqualified apology was never going to be enough to guilt-trip
Australians into clarity over this issue.

The Opposition Leader certainly did not shy away from referring
to other dimensions underpinning indigenous policy in the 20th
century.

"In some cases, government policies evolved from the belief that
the Aboriginal race would not survive and should be assimilated. In
others, the conviction was that half-caste children in particular
should, for their own protection, be removed to government and
church-run institutions where conditions reflected the standards of
the day. Others were placed with white families whose kindness
motivated them to the belief that rescued children deserved a
better life."

Tragically, that is where the list ended. As if nothing but
good, yet mistaken, intentions were at work. For this explanation
to follow Rudd's direct quoting of past state and territory
bureaucrats detailing their respective government's policy goal to
"eradicate" and "eliminate" indigenous people was nothing short of
fraudulent.

Some will retort that the apology should never have been about
educating ill-informed citizens or persistent denialists. They will
worry that for too long the national agenda catered destructively
to these community members. Yet, that is to miss the very point of
reconciliation, a process of coming together between indigenous and
non-indigenous Australians in a spirit of true understanding.
Through each failing to deliver a speech that could resonate with a
wider Australia, both missed an opportunity to lay an even firmer
foundation for reconciliation.

Instead, each leader committed a folly typical of the Howard era
they wished to leave behind: the perpetuation of a one-sided
national conversation for the sake of a particular ideological
agenda. That is how nations are divided, not reconciled.

Angela Cummine is studying a Masters in Political Theory at
Oxford University on an Australian Rhodes Scholarship.